The
price tag for the wars being waged by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan
will hit nearly $1.6 trillion during the coming year, according to a
report released Tuesday by the Democratic staff of Congress’s
Joint Economic Committee.

Titled “War at any
Price? The Total Economic Costs of the War Beyond the Federal Budget,”
the report’s estimate amounts to nearly double the $804 billion
that the Bush administration has either received or requested to finance
the two wars through the 2008 fiscal year.

In addition to the hundreds
of billions of dollars appropriated by Congress for the wars and occupations
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the new report factors in such expenses as
medical care for wounded military personnel, the war’s impact
on the tripling of oil prices since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq
and interest on the money that has been borrowed to finance the wars.

“The full economic
costs of the war to the American taxpayer and the overall US economy
go well beyond even the immense federal budget costs already reported,”
the 29-page report states. “These ‘hidden costs’ of
the Iraq war include the ongoing drain on US economic growth created
by Iraq-related borrowing, the disruptive effects of the conflict on
world oil markets, the future care of our injured veterans, repair costs
for the military, and other undisclosed costs.”

Also factored in are lost
productivity from the tens of thousands of troops injured in Iraq and
Afghanistan, increased recruitment and retention costs for the military,
economic disruptions caused by the deployment of the Reserves, and the
diversion of capital borrowed for the wars from productive investment.

The report further estimates
that the total cost of the two wars between 2003 and 2017 will amount
to $3.5 trillion—a figure that is $1 trillion higher than the
estimate offered last month by the Congressional Budget Office for the
same time frame. That estimate covered only direct budgetary outlays
and interest on war-related debt.

The Joint Economic Committee,
which includes members from both the House and the Senate, says that
this staggering amount would be reached even given a “considerable
drawdown in troop levels.”

The report states that the
cost of the two wars has already risen to $20,000 for every average
family of four in the US. It projects per-family costs through 2027
to hit $46,400. The lion’s share—$36,900—is blamed
on the war in Iraq.

Interest costs on Iraq-related
debt are projected to rise to over $23 billion in the current fiscal
year, and to increase to some $80 billion annually by 2017, for a total
outlay of $550 billion in war-funding interest payments between 2003
and 2017.

On the question of the wars’
wounded, the report states that both the administration and the CBO
have significantly underestimated the long-term costs to society. It
points to the fact that advances in medical technology have kept alive
large numbers of troops that would have been killed in previous wars,
including some 800 whose wounds have been so severe as to require amputations.
It also cites estimates that up to 20 percent of those returning from
Iraq have suffered traumatic brain injuries and a similar percentage
is estimated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, both of which can result
in the need for long-term care. For these reasons, the congressional
panel’s staff estimates that total economic costs for the wounded
will be at least $25 billion more than the figure given by the CBO.

In an appendix to the document,
the committee’s staff provides three alternate “scenarios”
for the costs of the two wars. The first—and presumably seen as
the most likely—is the one that the report used to make its estimate,
involving a partial withdrawal of US troops from Iraq followed by a
protracted occupation, with the total deployment falling to 55,000 by
2013, and costing $3.5 trillion by 2027.

The second is based upon
troop levels in Iraq being maintained at the “pre-surge”
level of 155,000 indefinitely, with costs for the two wars mounting
to $4.5 trillion—only slightly less than the total cost of World
War II.

The third is based upon withdrawal
timetables attached to legislation proposed by House Democrats, with
the number of US troops in Iraq being reduced to 10,000 in 2010, followed
by a complete withdrawal. In this case, the costs are estimated at $2.6
trillion by 2017.

That the Democratic staff
of the Joint Economic Committee advances these three alternate scenarios
has unmistakable significance. It is one more indication of the emerging
bipartisan consensus that Washington’s colonial-style wars are
to continue for many years to come.

The most likely scenario,
as the report states “assumes that some active conflict with insurgents
continues” through 2013; that is, after the American people have
voted in two more presidential elections.

As for the supposed “best
case” scenario based on the non-binding language of the House
Democrats, tens of thousands of soldiers and marines would remain in
Iraq for another three years.

Significantly, none of these
scenarios projects a significant reduction in the tens of thousands
of troops deployed in Afghanistan over the next decade.

The report was released on
the same day that President Bush vetoed a $150.7 billion domestic spending
bill that funded health care, education and job training programs. The
White House claimed that it was $10 billion over the administration’s
fiscal target, while House sources indicated that it was really only
$6 billion—an amount equal to roughly 3 percent of the money that
is projected to be spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year.

At the same time, Bush signed
into law a separate military spending bill that provides $471 billion
to fund the Pentagon’s regular operations, not including the funding
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total appropriations for the
military represented a 9 percent increase over last year.

Meanwhile, the House Democrats
are expected to vote this week on a proposal that would provide the
first $50 billion installment on the administration’s request
for nearly $200 billion to fund the two wars. The legislation, which
would pay for operations until February, also includes language requiring
Bush to draft a plan to withdraw US “combat troops” by the
end of next year.

The use of this term is meant
to obscure the fact that the Democrats support the continued deployment
of tens of thousands of troops for the purposes of continued “counterterrorism
operations,” the training of Iraqi puppet forces and the protection
of US facilities and assets in Iraq.

Bush has indicated he will
veto any measure suggesting a withdrawal timetable.

Whatever the fate of this
measure, the Democratic leadership blocked the inclusion of any language
in the overall Pentagon spending bill that would have barred the transfer
of funds from other programs into the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,
thereby assuring that the wars will go on and continue to be funded.

Speaking in Indiana Tuesday,
Bush demanded that Congress approve a war spending bill without any
conditions before the Christmas recess. “We don’t need members
of Congress telling our military commanders what to do,” he said.
“We need our military commanders telling us what to do so we can
win the war against these extremists and radicals.”

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